


Flawed Enough

by loudspeakr



Category: Rhett & Link
Genre: Belonging, Childhood, Gen, Light Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-30
Updated: 2016-09-30
Packaged: 2018-08-18 14:22:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,595
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8164999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loudspeakr/pseuds/loudspeakr
Summary: Link ponders his life as one half of a whole.





	

**Author's Note:**

> The title comes from the song "You And Me" by you + me. The whole album rose ave. is gorgeous, but this song in particular? I swear it was written for Rhett and Link and their life-giving friendship. 
> 
> I highly recommend listening to it while you read this.

It must be easy being Rhett.

The thought kind of just slips out, as Link sits idly at his desk one morning. Rhett is beside him, sitting on the ground – God knows why – slouched against the back wall of their office with his phone in his hands. He’s lost to the world when he’s like this: tapping away at electronic buttons, swiping at pixels on a tiny screen, totally engrossed in whatever it is that he’s found to preoccupy himself this time.

Link can’t ever just turn off like that, be able to disconnect from the world around him. Even now, he’s thinking about which bills he needs to pay next, what groceries he’ll have to pick up on the way home, whether it’s Christy’s night tonight to pick the movie or if it’s his. His mind is programmed to go a thousand miles an hour, to process a hundred different things at once, constantly evaluating and prioritising.

It’s one of the reasons why he never really took to Twitter. He has it – of course he does, he makes his living from being online – but it’s almost a chore for him, having to remember to tweet something to keep his account active. He’s gotten a little better recently, even going so far as to tweet something three days in a row. A real record for Link Neal – he’s seen the comments, he knows. It’s just that there are so many more important things to be thinking about here in the real world.

Rhett, on the other hand, will already be on his phone, typing out his inane thought before Link can even ask what it is. He does it without thinking sometimes. Rather, the act of composing the tweet is just another method of thinking it out for him. _A secondary processor_ , Link can imagine Rhett saying in his matter-of-factly voice.

In any case, the point is: Rhett is malleable. Rhett adapts. He can breeze into any room, any situation, and be completely comfortable there.

That's how they became friends, actually. Sure, the official story that they're always telling dictates that they became friends in first grade when they were being held in during recess for writing profanity on their desks. It isn't a lie, not really. But if they're being precise – Link is a man of precision after all – it actually happened after that, during their first lunch break.

It had been difficult for Link to make friends, what with his being an only child and all. So it was a revelation to him – an earth-shattering, life-altering moment – when Rhett first spoke to him out on the playground. Link had been upset about being in trouble on the very first day of school. He hadn’t made any friends just yet, hadn’t really spoken to anyone else besides his teacher and his mama earlier that morning.

Before she kissed him on the forehead and drove away in their little old truck, his mother had promised him that school would be an exciting place. She said he would make a lot of new friends and that he would be having so much fun that he wouldn’t even have time to miss her.

It was the first time Link’s mom had ever broken a promise.

So Link had been sitting alone at the swings, taking deep breaths with his eyes shut like his mama told him to do whenever he had that bad feeling in his tummy. He’d been sitting there, listening to the other kids play and laugh around him, trying to focus on the soft clink-clink of the chains beside his ears, when...

“What’re you doin’?”

Opening his eyes, he immediately found Rhett standing before him, recognising him as the other kid who’d been held in with him earlier. Rhett hadn’t yet hit a monstrous height for his age, though he was a little taller than most of the kids. His eyes, wide and gentle, looked down at five-year-old Link, his head tilted curiously.

Link didn’t respond. Instead, he stilled, feeling his face burn with embarrassment or despair – he still isn’t really sure which – his vision going blurry with tears. Through them, he could see Rhett’s brow knit with concern. He watched the boy lean in closer to him, close enough that Link could see the smudge of peanut butter on the corner of his mouth.

“Are you okay?”

Something in Rhett’s voice broke him then, a dam cracking under the weight of his day so far. No amount of resolve or pride could hold back the blubbering mess Link was fast devolving into.

His first words to Rhett were a string of hiccupped syllables: “I- have- a- hurt.”

The boy’s mouth popped open as he looked Link up and down, trying to locate this alleged injury. “Where? Where is it?”

“In my heart,” and Link had let out a wail, high-pitched and frantic. He was sure the other kids – every single one of them – had turned to look at him then, but at the time, he didn’t notice. Instead, he had Rhett help him out of his swing and take him over to one of the teachers, who called his mom and let Link speak with her over the phone.

It had been Rhett’s first heroic act of best friendship, and one of the first signs of how truly different they were to one another.

The disparities didn’t end there. Thinking about it, it all boiled down to this: Link had come from a scattered patchwork of a family. He lived with his mom and eventually with his stepdad Jimmy as well, and his dad lived far away, too far for him to visit regularly. Rhett, however, had come with a complete set of family members. He had a mother, a father, even a brother, and they all lived under the same roof.

Rhett’s parents both worked, earning his family enough money to go on road trips and vacations. As soon as he was sixteen, his parents had bought him a car, a rusty old Omega. And throughout high school, Rhett was constantly dating, his charm and athleticism always a point of attraction, it seemed, for the ladies of their school.

Whereas, with Link, everything came with a delay. His first car came to him a year after Rhett’s had. His first girlfriend was Rhett’s first before him. Even his first trip out of the state had been with Rhett’s family, one of many already documented in their collection of photo albums.

Link couldn’t be mad about it if he tried: his best friend had always been funny and smart, and he deserved everything he had. Somewhat good-looking as well, but he’d never admit that much to Rhett’s face. And although the man would argue otherwise, Rhett was always the true life of the party. He talked to those who would otherwise cower in the back corner, he would instigate dance battles and drinking games. He’d be the guy to grab the bucket before someone vomited. Link was good at playing the social butterfly, but Rhett was even better.

That’s the case with most things between them, it seems, Link being good and Rhett being better. Link is good at paying attention to detail, but it’s Rhett who sees those things, too, and makes them better. Link is good at being interested in new things, but Rhett is the one who turns them into hobbies. Link is good at attempting to feel less overwhelmed than he usually is, but Rhett doesn’t even need to try.

Maybe that’s what it is. Link tries. Rhett never has to.

“Rhett?”

There’s no doubt in Link's mind that Rhett was always destined for great things. But this building, this company, this career of theirs – could it have ever come to exist without his having a part to play in it?

“Yeah, man?” Rhett looks up and lands those wide, gentle eyes on Link where he sits, hearing the shutter of a photo being taken.

And there he is – sitting on the floor, dressed in jeans and a plain V-neck, a pair of sandals hanging off his feet, just like the ones on Link’s – a man who never asked for any of the things that Link thought set them worlds apart. He never asked for excellent story-telling skills or birthdays at McDonald’s. He never asked for the house he grew up in or the kindness he shows to everyone he meets, including the strange kid sitting alone on a swing. And everything else – his wife, his kids, this job, every single good thing in his life now – is a thing he worked to the bone to have.

In fact, now that he’s thinking about it, all Rhett has ever asked for is that Link be by his side.

“Nothing.”

It’s a nice thought, being the sun to someone’s moon. The yin to their yang.

“Sure thing, brother.”

_The Link to his Rhett._

 

Later, Link will see the photo Rhett took of him.

He'll look at the harsh monochromatic hues and wonder how it was that he ever doubted his belonging in this place. He'll look at himself and the office around him, the mementos that fill the space with memories and inspiration, void of the colour that greets him each day when he opens that door.

He'll see himself, Link Neal, plain and simple in the life he created with his best friend, his confidant, his brother. He'll see himself the way Rhett sees him, the way Rhett has always seen him.

And he'll be at peace once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Well, I promised I'd give you guys something sweet and fluffy soon enough, didn't I? :)
> 
> As always, thanks for reading~!


End file.
